Welcome to the August 22, 2022, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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TikTok Browser Can Track Users' Keystrokes
The New York Times
Paul Mozur; Ryan Mac; Chang Che
August 19, 2022
Privacy researcher Felix Krause found the TikTok video application's Web browser can track users' keystrokes, demonstrating that the Chinese-owned app can monitor users' online behavior. Independent software engineer Jane Manchun Wong said Krause's discovery suggests a TikTok user "might enter their sensitive data such as login credentials on external Websites," adding that the in-app browser could "extract information from the user's external browsing sessions, which some users find overreaching." Researchers said although big technology companies might use such trackers when testing new software, they seldom issue a major commercial app with such features, enabled or not. TikTok refuted Krause's findings, claiming the tracker was for "debugging, troubleshooting, and performance monitoring."
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Automatic Device Driver Isolation Protects Against OS Bugs
Penn State News
Mary Fetzer
August 19, 2022
Pennsylvania State University's G. Gary Tan and Trent Jaeger led a team of researchers in the development of a framework for automating and reducing the amount of manual work required for device driver isolation against operating system bugs. The KSplit framework automatically analyzes the shared driver-kernel state and computes synchronization needs for this shared state, while detecting areas requiring manual work. Jaeger said KSplit-furnished analyses can be extended to software demanding precise analysis of data access information, underscoring the potential for shielding against intentional security breaches or other attacks.
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Google Demos Soda-Fetching Robots
Reuters
Paresh Dave
August 16, 2022
Alphabet subsidiary Google has developed mechanical waiters that can fetch soda and snacks from breakrooms for office employees as an example of an innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) that clears a path for easily controlled multipurpose robots. The robots currently can carry out only a few dozen simple actions. In practice, they interpret naturally spoken commands, consider possible actions against their capabilities, and plan steps to complete tasks. Google researchers incorporated language technology into the robots that they can use to infer knowledge from Wikipedia, social media, and other webpages. The use of AI with more refined language capabilities boosted the robots' successful execution of commands from 61% to 74%.
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Algorithm Learns to Correct 3D Printing Errors
University of Cambridge (U.K.)
August 16, 2022
An algorithm developed by researchers at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge can be added to new or existing three-dimensional (3D) printers to enable real-time error detection and correction across different materials and printing systems. The Deep Learning computer vision model was trained with about 950,000 images from the production of 192 printed objects, with labels detailing the printer's speed, nozzle temperature, and flow rate, among other settings. Said University of Cambridge's Sebastian Pattinson, "Once trained, the algorithm can figure out just by looking at an image which setting is correct and which is wrong; is a particular setting too high or too low, for example, and then apply the appropriate correction. And the cool thing is that printers that use this approach could be continuously gathering data, so the algorithm could be continually improving as well."
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Quantum Annealing Can Beat Classical Computing (in Limited Cases)
HPCwire
August 15, 2022
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrated that quantum annealing computers can run algorithms faster than classical computers can, under certain conditions, but are not faster in most cases when time is limited. Said Los Alamos' Nikolai Sinitsyn, "We proved that you can be sure you will reach a fast solution from the initial problem, but that's only true for a certain class of problems that can be set up so that the many histories of evolution of the quantum system interfere constructively. Then the different quantum histories enhance each other's probability to reach the solution."
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Visualizing Nanoscale Structures in Real Time
University of Michigan News
James Lynch
August 18, 2022
A beta version of open-source three-dimensional (3D) data visualization software developed by University of Michigan (U-M)-led researchers can render nanoscale visuals of structures in minutes. The enhanced tomviz tool also allows researchers to view and manipulate 3D visualizations in real time, which could dramatically accelerate materials research. U-M's Robert Hovden said the software pulls data directly from an electron microscope as it is generated, and displays results immediately. Previously, researchers had to capture hundreds of two-dimensional projection images of nanomaterial from various angles and feed them to tomviz, which would take hours to produce 3D visualizations from them. Hovden said thanks to the augmented software, "You can start interpreting and doing science before you're even done with an experiment."
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A Neuromorphic Chip for AI on the Edge
UC San Diego News Center
Ioana Patringenaru
August 17, 2022
An international team of researchers created the NeuRRAM neuromorphic chip to compute directly in memory and run artificial intelligence (AI) applications with twice the energy efficiency of platforms for general-purpose AI computing. The chip moves AI closer to running on edge devices, untethered from the cloud; it also produces results as accurate as conventional digital chips, and supports many neural network models and architectures. "The conventional wisdom is that the higher efficiency of compute-in-memory is at the cost of versatility, but our NeuRRAM chip obtains efficiency while not sacrificing versatility," said former University of California, San Diego researcher Weier Wan.
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Robot Boat Maps Pacific Underwater Volcano
BBC News
Sophie Ormiston
August 20, 2022
A robot boat developed by U.K. ship designer Sea-Kit International is mapping the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai (HTHH) underwater volcano in the Tonga archipelago as part of New Zealand-Japan's Tonga Eruption Seabed Mapping Project. Operators in the U.K. control the Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) Maxlimer via satellite link, watching real-time data from the South Pacific captured by the boat's cameras around the clock. Instruments can be deployed on a winch as deep as 300 meters (984 feet) below the water’s surface. Data collected by the USV will offer insights into the violent impact of HTHH's eruption in January, as well as helping to forecast the nature of future eruptions.
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Wireless Tech Measures Soil Moisture at Multiple Depths
NC State University News
Matt Shipman
August 17, 2022
Scientists at North Carolina State University (NC State) developed the wireless Contactless Moisture Estimation (CoMEt) system to measure soil moisture at multiple depths in real time. NC State's Usman Mahmood Khan said, "If we know how far the signal has traveled, and we measure how a wireless signal's wavelength has changed, we can determine the phase shift of the signal. This, in turn, allows us to estimate the amount of water in the soil." An above-ground wireless device transmits radio waves into the soil, receives the signals reflected back, and measures the phase shift. The researchers said CoMEt could help inform irrigation practices to improve crop yield and lower agricultural water usage.
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Researchers Develop 3D-Printed Artificial Cornea
The Hindu (India)
August 15, 2022
Indian scientists three-dimensionally (3D)-printed an artificial cornea and transplanted it into the eye of a rabbit. The device uses human donor corneal tissue, and the researchers said it contains no synthetics or animal residues. Each donor cornea can be used to produce three 3D-printed corneas, which can be fabricated in diameters ranging from 3 millimeters (mm) to 13 mm, and can be customized to the patient's specifications. Lead researchers Sayan Basu and Vivek Singh of the LV Prasad Eye Institute said in a statement, "The bio-ink used to make this 3D-printed cornea can be sight-saving for army personnel at the site of injury to seal the corneal perforation and prevent infection during war-related injuries or in a remote area with no tertiary eye care facility."
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'Anti-Reflective' Coating Allows Wi-Fi Through Walls
TechRadar
Steve McCaskill
August 18, 2022
Scientists at Austria's Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) and France's University of Rennes have enabled Wi-Fi signals to pass through walls more effectively. The method calculates an anti-reflective invisible structure to a wall, which TU Wien's Stefan Rotter likened to "the anti-reflective coating on your pair of glasses." The researchers transmitted microwaves through a labyrinth of obstacles, then calculated a matching anti-reflective structure that almost completely removed the signals' reflection. "We were able to show that this information can be used to calculate a corresponding compensating structure for any medium that scatters waves in a complex way, so that the combination of both media allows waves to pass through completely," explained TU Wien's Michael Horodynski.
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Your Smartphone Could Recognize You by How You Hold It
New Scientist
Jeremy Hsu
August 16, 2022
A group of researchers at France's Toulouse Institute of Computer Science Research trained an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered algorithm to identify persons based on patterns in their hand vibrations when holding a smartphone. Over 200 volunteers each held a smartphone while its sensors gathered data during either a 30-second session or a series of sessions. The AI analyzed roughly half of this data to formulate how best to distinguish individual users, then was tested on the other half to identify specific persons. The algorithm identified test subjects correctly about 92.5% of the time within 1.5 seconds across 1,100 tests.
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